The legal marijuana industry could explode by 2020

An
unidentified man sits beneath a California state flag that has
been decorated with pot leaves at the San Francisco Patients
Cooperative, a medical marijuana dispensary.Justin Sullivan/Getty

The "green rush" is about to get even bigger, according to a new
report from Arcview Market Research, a leading publisher of
marijuana market research.

Five states
will vote to legalize recreational marijuana this November,
while medical marijuana is up for consideration in four more
states. Should ballot initiatives pass in select key states
(California, Arizona, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine, Montana, and
Florida), those markets will account for $2.7 billion in
additional marijuana sales in 2018, Arcview and its
big-data partner New
Frontier reports.

That number grows to nearly $8 billion by 2020.

Arkansas and North Dakota were not included in Arcview and New
Frontier's estimates because initiatives there were added too
late to the ballots for the research group to develop a full
market projection, a New Frontier spokesperson tells
Business Insider.

Arcview projects the legal marijuana market will hit $20.6
billion in revenue by 2020, up from $5.4 billion in
2015. That's
more than what Americans spent on chocolate last year and
nearly double what the US porn industry rakes in annually.

In other words, that's an insane amount of weed.

A
worker carries medical marijuana at a growing
facility.Uriel
Sinai/Getty

"The cannabis industry is one of the fasting growing sectors in
the economy and continues to astonish those in and out of the
space," Giadha DeCarcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier, tells
Arcview.

Poll data
shows support for legalization in Massachusetts, Maine,
California, and Nevada, but less so in Arizona, where
conservative Governor Doug Ducey opposes an initiative that would
make it legal for residents age 21 and over to use and cultivate
marijuana.

In California, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1996,
over 60% of survey respondents asked about Proposition 64
expressed support,
according to Ballotpedia's average of polls. The initiative
would allow for an alcohol-style regulation and sale of
marijuana.

In spite of all this, Arcview has actually lowered its
expectations for the legal marijuana industry since March of this
year, down from $22.8 billion to $20.6 billion. The report
explains that new market data, plus operational challenges in
nascent markets, are responsible for the dip.